Tag Archives: denise turney

Material to Write Entertaining Books With

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

When you pause to consider your life, the twists and turns, you’ve gone through, the myriad of experiences you have had while a portion of the limitless YOU inhabited your body, it may be easy for you to see that you have material for an awesome story. Regardless of the number of years you have been on earth, you are marvelous. Facts be told, if you had to keep a journal of your every thought and action, you might struggle to find enough paper to hold your story.

Finding Material to Write Novels With

The material you’d write your story, your autobiography or memoir with would come from your memories, the very same resources that shape the way you feel right now (at this very second), the very same resources that create your level of comfort with trying new things. Oh, memories . . . they can pack a wallop. It’s a reason it’s a blessing to hold onto memories that make you feel peace, love and joy and let other memories go.

But what if you’re writing a novel? Where, then, do you get the material to write with?

Believe it or not, to some degree, you will get the material from the same place the material to write your autobiography comes from – within yourself. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what makes writing so emotional, so moving, so therapeutic for authors and book readers.

I also wonder if using inner resources is what separates literature from novels that are written primarily to get cash registers ringing. The good thing is you don’t have to be a book writer to know, to feel, where a novelist is getting the material for his books from. All you have to do is continue reading stories he’s written.

Why Novels Feel Real

In fact, after my first novel Portia was released in 1998 readers emailed me and told me they just knew I was from Chicago, Illinois (the city Portia is set in). I’m from Ohio. Despite how many times I told the book’s readers I wasn’t from Chicago, they didn’t believe me. To this day I think that was due to the research I did in preparation to write Portia and to the way I used material from within myself to create the book’s characters, namely Portia.

About five years later, when I released my third novel, Spiral, readers told me I was from Memphis, Tennessee (the city Spiral is set in). By that time I’d learned that when authors’ material comes from within, the stories those authors write feel authentic, feel real.  Readers appreciate that.

And it takes so little work on the author’s part. It’s a matter of simply allowing information to come to us, to rise up from within. Songwriters, musicians, painters, scriptwriters and even actors and actresses do it. It’s that authenticity that readers and movie viewers are drawn to, even while reading and watching fiction stories, poems and multi-dimensional sci-fi thrillers. At the core people know the stories aren’t real. However, they feel so real (due to where the material they were created with came from) that readers don’t want to turn away, don’t want to stop reading.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Even if you choose not to purchase your copy of Love Pour Over Me today, I encourage you to “consider Love.”

Books That Are Breaking Barriers

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

Read Love Pour Over Me and you’ll see the impact mental barriers have on us. In fact, I was reminded of this fact today after I returned from a daily walk.

While watching CNN’s Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien earlier today I was happy to watch a story about a school that teaches the Quran to Muslim girls, allowing them to read passages in the book for themselves. Through the readings the girls came to see that they were not created to be abused and mistreated.

Talk about a brilliant and joyous sight . . . to see another barrier broken! As I watched the story I thought about the movie The Help and how African American women were afraid to speak out against abuses happening to them in the 1950s and 1960s. As one woman after another shared her story, it became easier to distinguish facts from lies, kindness from manipulation and, perhaps most of all, fear from courage. After all, the fearful attack; it’s always a sure sign of fear . . . attack.

We Are Not Our Beliefs

In order to continue to distinguish lies from truth, we have to continue to examine our beliefs, even those practiced or passed down by our ancestors (after all, if our ancestors were as right as we might like to think they were our ancestors would have left the world in a more loving state). We also have to come to see that we are not our beliefs as we didn’t create ourselves; but we do create our beliefs. As we see we aren’t our beliefs we may come to realize that we are not harmed, weakened, etc. in any way, not the slightest or smallest way, by letting erroneous thoughts or wrong beliefs go.

Plainly stated, letting go of wrong beliefs, erroneous thoughts or illusions will not kill us. We precede our beliefs; what we truly are came first.

love pour over me book by denise turney

In Love Pour Over Me, Raymond Clarke’s erroneous thoughts start early, as they often do. Raymond’s father, a man with untreated alcoholism, tells Raymond one lie after another about himself. Evidence he uses to prove he’s right in his errorneous thinking might be something as simple as Raymond spilling a glass of milk on the floor or trekking mud in the house on the bottom of his shoe.

Seventeen years of hearing then believing lies about himself causes Raymond to start protecting himself, especially his heart. It also propels Raymond to flee home. It’s his next step that changes his life, and the lives of five people he meets at college, forever, that, over a long stretch of time, helps Raymond to start examining lies he’s been told, aiding him as he begins breaking inner barriers to love.

As I watched the CNN story, thought about the movie The Help and pondered Raymond’s fate in Love Pour Over Me, I couldn’t help but wonder if our greatest fear is real love (not the illusion of love we are so keen to celebrate and chase after). Think about it. Is real love what we’re trying to attack, trying to steer clear of?

Thank you for reading my blog. Please return often and read more blog posts. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! 

Sources:

Love Pour Over Me – http://www.ebookit.com/books/0000001582/Love-Pour-Over-Me.html

Great Quotes from Love Pour Over Me

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

love pour over me book quotes

Love Pour Over Me is a book that is created to endure the test of time. Through multi-faceted characters, major and minor, the book explores and examines the human condition. It celebrates love, the joy that it brings and resistance to experiencing love, helping readers to see that anytime they thought they tried love and love failed it wasn’t love they tried but instead an illusion of love.

Scenes from Love Pour Over Me serve as wake up calls, motivation and inspiration for readers from various parts of the world and all walks of life. I share a very small portion of some Love Pour Over Me writings with you below:

  • “He wanted Malcolm to walk through the convention center doors sober and real proud like. He wanted Malcolm to be glad to call him his son.”
  • “A ghost haunted him; it pulled at him with so much force it felt stronger than he was. It was the shadow of a boy who didn’t want to leave, who wanted to stay and beg for his father to love him.”
  • “He wanted the thing he hated but had grown so used to he missed it.”
  • “Mirth hung between them like a thread. It bonded them closer one to the other — the good, the bad — the dark secrets.”
  • “He smiled as if images and sounds from the long ago experience were seeping through the memory so strongly that he looked like he’d just walked away from the concert, Lionel Hampton’s white dress shirt wet with sweat much like his t-shirt now was, his fingers entwined with his mother’s, his small head turned, looking back at the maestro as if he was more magic than man.”
  • “With his free hand, he brushed her forearm. ‘The only thing about trying to be too independent is that it gets you out of balance.’”
  • “Uncertainty hung in the air, and because it did, Brenda wanted to hold onto what was familiar to her. She couldn’t explain it. With each forward step she took, she had no evidence for it, but she felt certain that when she saw her sister again she would be deeply changed – forever.”
  • “He was jealous of Raymond. He envied the way Brenda doted upon him. She was unlike Leann, his tall, wiry wife of thirty-eight years, an emotionally steely woman with a frozen heart. Leann and he were tucked inside the walls of a dead union that not even all his preaching could revive. Yet somehow they found the energy to play the role of a happy, spiritual couple. Even their families thought love, not communal concern, kept them together.”
  • “The writing appeared smooth yet hard to read, the mark of a man who wrote often, who wrote fast. The letters were broadly curved at the ends. Space between each letter was wide, as if to leave room for the reader to pause or contemplate what was on the page. There was a pitch of deep sincerity in the note which read: ‘Even with an ailing loved one, I know you can do it. You’ve got what it takes to get over the top.’”
  • “Forfeit had long stood as a symbol of love to her. The more she sacrificed, the better she felt about herself. It was almost as if she believed that to sacrifice, to do what she least wanted to do, to go where she especially did not want to be, was to earn her place in the universe, akin to a tenant paying rent. Elders taught her that to relinquish her wants for another was the greatest act of love. It’s what made mothers good women, they told her.”
  • “If we didn’t have so much fear attached to things we want, I think we’d understand all of our dreams. Fear that we won’t get what we want makes us force dreams in a certain direction, to mean something deep down inside we know isn’t true. You know,” she added while she looked across the café. “I hadn’t thought of this before but I wonder if that’s the reason so many of us don’t remember our dreams. We don’t want to know the truth.”
  • “Twelve unaltered years, routine and habit forcing each new day to turn out like the one before, passed long and slowly for Raymond, like the train moving from station to station down the uneven tracks.”
  • “She took you down a new path with the way she loved you. She was the person you had courage to love in return. Do you know how freeing love is, Man? Do you know the gift this woman gave you? She opened you up to receive love, the greatest gift.”

Open to love, my friend. It’s inside of you, welling up even now. It lights your path. It knows the way.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You!

Developing Believable Characters

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

creating believable fiction book characters

It’s long been said that if we readers don’t care about characters in a novel, we won’t continue reading a story. As a passionate book reader and author of six novels, I agree with the saying. To get into the heart of a novel, to tap into, explore and savor the richest flow out of a story, readers must really care about what is going to happen to the main characters in a book.

Create Believable Book Characters

Admittedly, I’ve read novels where one or more minor characters upstaged main characters. I’m not exactly sure how this happens. Perhaps this occurs when authors relax and become freer while developing minor characters, people they presume will have less impact on the story’s outcome.

When this occurs, minor characters can, unbeknownst to authors, become the story’s main characters. Signs that this has occurred may be when readers tell authors how much they love minor characters or when readers ask authors to create a sequel about minor characters. Those characters, the ones readers want more of, are the foundation of a good story.

So, how do novelists create believable characters?

As a book author, an easy way is to achieve this is to consider people in your waking life who stand out to you, demanding your and other people’s attention. Shape powerful components of these people’s personalities into your book’s characters. For example, you could take your aunt’s strong opinions, blend them with a cousin’s quick temper and add a spice of a friend’s stylish fashion sense to create a book character. This worked wonderfully for me while creating my novels Portia, Spiral and Love Pour Over Me.

More Ways to Develop Believable Novel Characters

You can also design a sketch of your characters. When doing this, add enough background data (e.g. birthplace, age, family background, interests, physical experience goals, career) to characters to bring them alive for readers, to make the characters feel real to book readers. After you fill in the background information for characters, start working on characters’ personality traits, habits, quirks, etc.

To get a feel for characters, especially major characters, consider having characters keep a journal or write a letter (or email) to a friend. This can help reveal hidden details about characters, making it easier for you to flesh the characters out. Although I didn’t use this technique while developing Love Pour Over Me, I did use it to further shape Tammy Tilson while creating my mystery novel, Spiral.

Finally, after you start writing your novel make sure you develop believable dialogue for your book’s characters. It’s important that you do this for both major and minor characters. Dialogue helps with story pacing. It also reveals details about book characters. As a tip, allow characters in novels to speak with accents and perhaps use slang that’s relevant for the time period your story is set in. This is an element I had to pay particular attention to in my novel, Love Pour Over Me, especially while developing Raymond Clarke’s roommate Patrick, a man with a gregarious personality who hails from Mexico.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You!

Accessing Strong Faith to Realize Your Dreams

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

The genesis of faith is in the realm where physical eyes do not see. Faith might reveal itself in an emotion or thought. For example, if you want to land a six-figure job and buy a new house, faith might cause you to feel happy, hopeful and joyous when you drive through neighborhoods filled with houses that resemble the type of house you want to live in.

If you let the feelings and thoughts strengthen you will allow faith to connect your inner and outer vision causing you to see with your physical eyes what you first saw with your inner vision. Eventually you will have what you asked for (whether you used words or simply desire, absent words, to ask).

Temptations to Stop Using Faith to Realize Your Dreams

It all sounds simple enough and it is simple. However, we live in a physical world (even the physically blind use physical senses like touch to navigate the earth’s terrain). It’s tempting to keep checking to see if our faith is moving our inner vision for what we want into the physical realm. When we hear of others who have manifested their desires ahead of us we can start to feel like we’ll never get what we’ve been asking for. If we compare ourselves to others too much, we might start telling ourselves we’re “unlucky,” “not from the right family or background,” “created to sacrifice our desires so others can achieve” (this one is absolutely absurd!) or a failure.

I’m sure you can guess what likely occurs next. Yep. We quit trying to achieve our dreams, and that, my friend is not a fun life, because our authentic self will not stop asking for what it wants, and we may live a life of conflict, lacking peace, if we don’t get back to exercising strong faith to realize our dreams. It’s this refusal to quit that keeps moving Love Pour Over Me’s Raymond Clarke forward, propelling him to pursue his dreams to become one of the world’s top middle distance runners. Refusal to quit is also the reason Raymond never stops believing in and searching for love. Like many of us, the wait for true love seems too long for Raymond. Yet, the thought of living without love is too painful.

Realizing Your Dreams

The bottom line is – we were created to live vibrant, joyous, love-filled experiences . . . nothing short of it . . . ever. As we start doubting and not getting our most sincere, love-based requests while witnessing others doing the same, we may even tell ourselves that it’s the human condition to struggle, to be in conflict and misery. But this is a lie. Fortunately, there are enough of us using faith to realize our dreams to blow this lie out of the water.

For many students at a famous Pennsylvania university, Raymond’s successes serve as encouragement. Other students on the spacious university campus simply admire Raymond’s athletic achievements from afar, cheering him on with each win. While appreciating the support, Raymond can’t help but long for his father’s approval, something he didn’t get even when he was a little boy. This is where Raymond’s seeds of doubt about love and a truly good life derive. He starts to wonder if he can have what he really wants – a lifetime of love.

However, just because we don’t know how to start a car doesn’t mean a car won’t start. Just because we haven’t succeeded at riding ocean waves doesn’t mean ocean waves can’t be ridden (surfers do it all the time). Just because no one had broken the four minute mile didn’t mean humans couldn’t break the four minute mile (Roger Bannister broke the supposedly impossible to break four minute mile in 1954. Since that time the supposedly impossible fete has been accomplished by track runners many times with the fastest mile to date being run in 3:43. Perhaps it was the mental barrier that needed to be broken before the actual fete could be accomplished).

Possibly searching for a list of impossible fetes that humans achieved will help you to realize whatever you’re telling yourself is impossible might be very possible if you exercise faith to realize your dreams. Perhaps if you read stories of other people who felt a dream birthing inside themselves then worked to achieve or manifest the dream in the physical realm your faith will be strengthened.

It also might help to think about your love-based desires and paying attention to how good you feel when you see yourself achieving them. It’s this joy you want to feel all the time. Realizing your love-based dreams can help you to do this. It worked for Raymond in Love Pour Over Me. It’s worked for countless people around the globe. It can work for you.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Even if you choose not to purchase your copy of Love Pour Over Me today, I encourage you to “consider Love.”

Sources:

Love Pour Over Me – http://www.ebookit.com/books/0000001582/Love-Pour-Over-Me.html

Young Love’s Passion is Hot

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

When we’re young, passion is hot. Passion seems to flow through every intimate relationship when we’re young. Oh, the magic of the 20s. We feel as if our bodies will never age, our hair graying and our limbs becoming less nimble, the way our parents and grandparents have. It’s a time of wonder.

Joys and Triumphs of Young Love

Life stretches out before us, full of promise and hope. We hold on tight. Even if we’ve experienced disappointments and frustrations, made mistakes and taken wrong turns, during our teen and pre-teen years we know we can win. We know life holds one success after another for us. We believe in our greatness (and we should). We believe in romantic love, burn with hot passion for romantic love.

If we’ve never been in love with another person, someone who makes our heart race, our hands sweat, we’re in for a wild ride. Everything will sparkle and come alive for us. It’s a feeling unlike no other . . . being in love. Even if we’ve loved before – loving our parents, siblings, pets and friends – we have a compass; it tells us that this is different.

And it is this experience many of us have after we pack our bags and head off to college or university. It’s as if there is someone waiting for us to step into his or her life, someone waiting to join with us in love. In the hustle and busyness of college life we may not notice this person at once, but college last four to five years. There will be other times for us to connect with this person who will stir the passion within us, changing our lives forever. . . .

It’s this passionate love that Raymond Clarke experiences in the book, Love Pour Over Me. At the start of Love Pour Over Me, Raymond has just met Anthony Thompson, a collegiate football star, when he looks up and sees her. He doesn’t say it, but he knows – deep down he knows – she’s the woman for him. If asked to explain what he feels the instant he sees her, Raymond would struggle to find the words. Nothing from his past has prepared him for this. He can’t think of one other time when he felt what he feels when he sees her.

He doesn’t even wonder if it’s mere fantasy, something he’s making up in his mind, something he’ll never “really” share with her. He just goes with the experience, letting it guide and pull him along. It’s the right thing to do as Raymond discovers throughout the pages of the new book, Love Pour Over Me.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Even if you choose not to purchase your copy of Love Pour Over Me today, I encourage you to “consider Love.”

Loving the Smooth Sounds of Jazz Music

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

Jazz is a music form that stirs the soul and invigorates the mind without the need of words. Listen to one smooth jazz cut and you’ll see why jazz stays in style. The music has a language all its own.

For the Love of Traditional and Smooth Jazz

It doesn’t matter if you’re listening to Miles Davis getting low and funky on his trumpet or to Gerald Albright making a saxophone do what only he can, jazz will shake and soothe you both at the same time. Andy Snitzer ripping notes with his saxophone on “Taking Off” or add in Ella Fitzgerald dipping and riffing so effortlessly it seems as if she’s merely walking through the park signing along with birds that – it’s all glorious jazz.

No wonder Raymond Clarke, the main character in Love Pour Over Me, seeks out jazz the morning after he arrives to campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He’s seeking solace in the music. He also longs to feel some connection with his father back home. They both love jazz . . . Raymond and his father, Malcolm . . . one of their favorite musicians being the one and only Miles Davis.

If you’re a jazz lover like Raymond and Malcolm (or me) and you want to enjoy live jazz, check out some of the local, regional and international jazz festivals. For example, there’s the annual Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, California (the festival celebrated its 55th year in 2012), the Newport Jazz Festival, the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the Montreal Jazz Festival in Canada or the Saint Lucia Jazz Festival. These are just a few of the many jazz festivals that take place in the United States and around the world.

You can also enjoy live jazz at local parks, sometimes the admission is free. I’m willing to guess that if you love jazz as much as Love Pour Over Me’s Raymond Clarke does, you go out of your way to listen to jazz whenever you can. The music probably inspires and motivates you, sending good vibes all through you. Oh . . . the sweet sounds of jazz!

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You!

Sources:

Love Pour Over Me – http://www.ebookit.com/books/0000001582/Love-Pour-Over-Me.html

How Long Should You Wait For Love

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

1 Corinthians 13:7 says love “endureth all things.” In other words, love never gives up. It never quits as is evidenced in 1 Corinthians 13:13 where it states, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Love is Why We’re Here

Love is what we were created to do. However, this world’s thought system seems to taint love, taking away its shine, even causing it to appear weak, as something to avoid. We think we’re in love with someone only to discover subconscious (our hidden motives, hidden thoughts and hidden beliefs) that are rooted in the past are what caused us to feel a strong attraction to a person we claim to be in love with.

Years may pass before we realize that our relationship with a person, our attraction to someone, has very little, if anything to do with the actual person. Instead, if we still our mind until awareness arises, pushing away subconscious clouds, we may be surprised to find that we were attracted to a figure, experience or situation from the past. We may find that the people who remind us the most of emotionally charged experiences from the past grab our attention, demanding it.

“I’m in love! I’m in love!” we declare to family and friends. But are we? Or is our subconscious mind attempting to right a past wrong and seeking to use certain people (who again evoke strong memories from the past in us) to do so?

Love’s Eternal Attraction

If you don’t think this is possible, consider taking a few moments to create an honest portrait of the people you have felt most strongly attracted to. Don’t be surprised if you find two or more similar qualities in each of these people. You might even discover that the people you feel the strongest attraction to have personality traits (e.g. extraversion, courage, risk taking, social skills, leadership) you wish you had. In this case, you might pull toward people you believe will fill up perceived gaps in you.

The trouble is that we can’t fill up gaps in each other. Sure, we can love, support and encourage each other. We can laugh together. We can feel joy and celebrate successes together, but we can’t fill up gaps in each other. The reason we can’t fill up gaps in each other is simple; in truth, in reality (not in illusion) there are no gaps, there is no incompletion in any of us. Those of us who are like Raymond, the main character in Love Pour Over Me find this nearly impossible to believe.

In Raymond’s case, an abusive childhood has set the stage, created years of programming that may take a lifetime to decode. Fortunately, for Raymond there is Brenda. Without fully knowing why she can’t just walk away, Brenda works to understand Raymond, a hurting yet courageous and gentle man.

But, how long should you (or Brenda) wait for love? How long should you wait for someone to stop being afraid of love so that they can receive the love you are trying to give them? How long should someone what for you to lower your fear of love so that you can receive their love in return? Is it possible that some people (like you, like me . . . like Raymond) may not progress beyond old perceived hurts to accept love in all its beauty, all its glory?

I’m referring to true and real love, not an illusion of love that’s rooted in the past. Do you believe that love truly endures all things (e.g. wars, heartache, disappointment)? Do you truly believe that love is the greatest of all? If you do believe this, how is love changing your relationships? How is love causing you to see and communicate differently with the people in your life?

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You!

Young Men and Women Coming of Age at College

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

Remember when we graduated from middle school? Didn’t we feel apprehensive and nervous about transferring into high school, wondering if older students would immediately accept and take us into their inner circles?

Growing Up on College Campuses

We may have lost our focus as to why we were in high school which, more than likely, was to learn facts, figures and information we were previously unaware of. But, it’s tough to not want to be popular, to have everyone support and be drawn to you when you’re in high school. Truth be told, even after we become an adult it can be tough to avoid focusing more on being popular or liked than to focus on fulfilling short and long-term goals.

It’s a reason we appreciate our friends, hanging out with them and sharing challenges and triumphs with them. In fact, although it might be rare, some of us maintain relationships with high school classmates throughout our lives. We mean it when we write things like “I’ll always keep in touch” or “Friends forever” in our closest friends’ high school annuals.

Then some of us, like Love Pour Over Me’s main character, Raymond Clarke, don’t meet our best friends until we step on a college campus. Like Raymond we may not go to college seeking out friends, but we bump into people like Anthony Thompson (an elite college football player), Patrick (a proud Mexican who’s majoring in criminal justice, a man who shares a similar childhood root with Raymond) and Doug (an international student from Italy) . . . and our lives change  . . . forever.

Before we know it we’re coming of age, growing up, all at college. We may feel in love with another person for the first time. We may even marry while we’re in college or soon after we graduate with college degrees. Or, like Raymond and his friends in Love Pour Over Me, more unexpected and harrowing events may shake up our lives, forcing us to look back at our former, younger selves as if the people we once were are mere strangers we passed in a hallway.

Either way, we can’t go back. We’re not at home anymore. We’re not in high school anymore. We’re growing up . . . hopefully in ways that won’t come back to haunt us years later. . . .

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You!

More about Books – Starting on a New Novel

Posted on by

By Denise Turney

I was almost finished editing Love Pour Over Me when I started writing my next novel. Looking back, I think that’s the way I’ve always managed the creative side of my writing career. The process keeps me from getting too attached to the book I’ve just finished writing. This, in turn, allows me to keep moving forward, ready to receive the next fiction story that surfaces within me.

Writing the first draft of a new book is fun. It’s also the most challenging part, especially considering the fact that I’ve learned how to cut the fat out of a story without feeling like I’m taking blood from myself. Oh, the despair, the dread I felt years ago when it came time to start editing and cutting away at a story I’d spent months laboring to pull together. Although I can’t confirm it, I imagine that most authors struggle with this part of the writing process.

As I’m experiencing with my next book “Gada’s Glory” (working title), I feel exhilarated while I’m creating a new book. It’s so much fun! The process is pure – purely creative. There’s no need to focus on marketing, promotions, etc. during this process. I don’t have to spread the word about a new novel I’m creating because it’s all mine . . . for now.

It’s like being in a laboratory, trying this and that, creating intriguing characters and placing them in challenging and/or rewarding scenes. In time I start rooting for one or more characters and disliking other characters. Amazing how this happens considering the fact that I’m the one who’s creating all of the book’s characters. Oddly, with Love Has Many Faces (sold out) a character I loved (Leslie Fletcher) was absolutely hated and despised by readers. That was a first for me. Leslie made a lot of mistakes, many of which deeply hurt innocent people, but she evolved and awakened by the end of Love Has Many Faces; however, readers were not up for dismissing her prior mistakes.

Which brings me to another point I love about starting on a new novel . . . I love working with emotion! It may well be my biggest payoff as a book author – hearing from readers, especially readers who are emotionally charged about a scene or character. I love when that happens!

Malcolm (Raymond Clarke’s father) is the guy who pulls loads of emotion out of readers in my recently published book, Love Pour Over Me. Unlike Leslie, readers come to see Malcolm differently by the end of Love Pour Over Me. Guess I got a little better at allowing characters to evolve and awaken. That or Leslie struck a nerve in readers and wouldn’t let go.

But that’s me . . . what are your favorite parts of a novel? What makes a story a winner for you, the type of book you simply can’t put down? Is it the plot, dialogue, an intriguing setting . . . Just what is it about a book that keeps you turning the pages?

I’m sure you can tell; the rewards of writing are a plenty! I love to write, to create stories that pull emotion up within readers like you! Gotta tell you, as a reader, you make my life’s work wonderful! Thank you!

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You!